Free Kiss of Surrender by Sandra Hill

“JAM went out to get Trond a spare T-shirt he always carries in his vehicle, but Trond didn’t want to put it on over all that sticky beer. So, as we speak, he is washing the beer off his head and bare chest . . .” She paused in a ta-da fashion. “ . . . in the spraying machine.”
    “Better than porn.” Donita waved a hand in front of her face.
    “Every woman in the joint is getting a hot flash,” Marie added, also fanning her face.
    Nicole could only imagine. Unfortunately.
    Within moments, they were all back in the bar, halfway across the dance floor, staring like all the other fascinated females and amused men as Trond stepped out of the spraying machine and used a bar towel to begin drying off his head and chest, seemingly oblivious to the stir he was causing, or perhaps he was just used to that type of attention.
    Suddenly, as if he sensed her presence, he glanced up and over at her. Their gazes held for a long moment before he winked. At her!
    She had fully expected anger, or mocking. But a wink?
    No, no, no!
    That wink said in body language as old as time, I have you in my cross-hairs, babe. Beware!
    A laughing JAM handed the idiot a metallic gray T-shirt that Trond proceeded to pull over his head and tuck into his jeans. Even the tucking was an erotic exercise.
    “Ho-ly mo-ly!” she whimpered.
    He couldn’t possibly have heard her this far away, and yet his head shot up, and he raised his eyebrows in question. He knew! The overconfident man knew precisely what effect he had on her.
    Now that the “floor show” was over, people were returning to the bar or their tables to drink, or to the dance floor where the band was now playing that ultra sexy “Need You Now.” She needed to get out of here before she made a fool of herself, or an even bigger fool than she’d already been. There was a back exit, she recalled, and spun on her heels, heading that way.
    She’d gone only a few steps across the dance floor when she was yanked to a halt by a hand on her upper arm.
    It was Trond, of course.
    “What do you want?” She glared at him over her shoulder.
    “You.”
    She turned, inch by inch, incredulous at such an outrageous lie. He’d shown her fifty ways to Sunday since she’d met him how much he disliked her. And now he wanted her to believe he wanted her? Another ploy to move his secret agenda? How dumb did he think she was?
    And he dared to look at her with such unwavering innocence. Men! They were clueless to the bone.
    She did the only thing she could then. She burst out laughing.

Five
    Some chains are of our own making . . .
    N icole, you misunderstood.”
    She stopped laughing for a moment.
    “I misspoke.”
    “Oh?”
    “When I said I want you, I didn’t mean want want.”
    She started to laugh again.
    Laughter was not the reaction any man wanted to his lustful inclinations, even if those lustful inclinations were all in her head. Okay, they were in his head, too, and some other places, but only because she’d brought up the subject.
    “So, you don’t want me in that way ?”
    That way and a dozen others. Maybe two dozen. “Are you on offer?” What? Did I really ask that? If I had any hair on my fool head, now would be the time to start pulling it. “When you asked what I wanted, I said you, but I never finished the sentence. I want you to stand still long enough so that I can apologize.”
    “Apologize?” she scoffed.
    A pair of dancers—Cage and Marie, doing an energetic Cajun two-step—slammed into Nicole’s back, shoving her against his chest, and he put his hands on her hips to steady her. With the high-heeled boots she wore, she fit nicely against his much taller frame, hip to hip, and other equally tongue-and-groove parts. Especially when she linked her hands behind his neck, preparatory to dancing. How he had moved from his apologizing to dancing was a leap he found hard to fathom. “I hate to dance,” he told her.
    “I love to dance,” she replied.
    Which